Lower Cape activists form 'Indivisible' group

Friday

Apr 7, 2017 at 1:43 PM

By Lee Roscoe

BREWSTER -- There’s a new urgency to activism coalescing through Lower Cape Indivisible.

Steering Committee coordinator, attorney Karl Oakes said that when he saw the national “Indivisible” guide online, it provided a means to begin to organize “to resist the Trump agenda,” which Oakes suggested, is like “a life and death struggle with a wild animal that wants to eat me. I don’t have an option to walk away.”

Through social media the call went out from Oakes and three others, and the first meeting assembled in January at Brewster Ladies' Library.

”We thought we’d get 20 people,” Oakes said, “but 120 showed up.” By February there 240 met at First Parish church in Brewster, and now 550 have signed up for the group’s newsletter, and have organized into subcommittees.

“We went from being a PT Cruiser to a battleship,” summed up Lyn Wilkinson, issues team co-chair.

Lower Cape Indivisible includes members from Eastham, Orleans, Brewster, Chatham, Harwich and Orleans. There’s an Outer Cape chapter for Provincetown, Wellfleet and Truro, as well as a Mid-Cape one.

“I’m so impressed with the depth of information team members are delivering,” said Wilkinson.

Meadow Hilley, communications co-chair, coordinates the weekly newsletter to get that information out succinctly via website, Facebook and Twitter with calendars of upcoming events, (such as a town hall meeting in May with state Attorney General Maura Healey or a General Assembly), digests of issues ranked by relevance, and mobilization tactics.

Issues of immediate concern have included preventing President Trump’s healthcare changes and Neil Gorsuch’s appointment to the Supreme Court. Long term goals include minimizing Federal budget cuts’ impacts on education and the safety of the environment (preventing drilling on public lands, or remanding recent approval of known harmful pesticides), investigating Trump's alleged Russian connection, addressing the instability of NATO, and gun control. Reiterating core values of tolerance as regards “immigration, racism and xenophobia,” is also important, Oakes said, adding longer term objectives are "to take back the House in 2018, and take back the Presidency in 2020.”

Wilkinson said Lower Cape Indivisible is “still working on process and structure; creating a template for the best ways to approach effective action.”

Allowing members to be autonomous, Oakes said “We don’t need to be in lockstep,” agreeing that “Indivisible” was more an activist enabler and set of tools, rather than a movement with an agenda, per se.

Using the old dictum that “all politics is local,” the best way to organize and “pressure our elected officials to do the right thing is from the ground up," Hilley said. "From the local on up” as the Tea Party did so effectively. “Whether it’s county, state, or federal, register your opinion.”

Oakes urged, “Call [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren. Call [Congressman William] Keating. Thank them when they do the right thing.”

Wilkinson added, “It takes a while to make connections with our legislators. But people are making calls, almost every day.”

And it’s working.

State Rep. Sarah Peake thinks “Indivisible is doing great advocacy work. I’m happy to work with them,” mentioning that she’s the lead sponsor of an Electronic Privacy Act which might be of interest. “There’s a big group coming to the State House April 5 for an immigration rally; those larger numbers are being driven by Indivisible on Cape Cod."

Wilkinson, who moved from San Francisco to Harwich and runs a Pilates studio, said she “was living in a bubble. Now I’m really mad. I feel tricked. I don’t think either party is working. I’ve stood on the sidelines” of a broken system until now and, “it’s wonderful to have a non-partisan way to fight for change.”

Oakes, who considers himself a Progressive said, “I don’t mind people like George Will and William Buckley, but Republicans have been driven way to the right. There’s a distortion of reality with people like Breitbart (founder of the far right news agency that bears his name); people are poorly or barely informed, and that’s scary. Trump’s personality is spiritually, ethically, knowledge-wise, so unqualified. He’s like a Banana Republic kleptocrat, a wanna-bee fascist."

Oakes said his father was a Polish officer in 1939 who survived the war and his mother lived in France under Nazi occupation.

"I’ve seen Poland in 1964 miserable under Russian rule. I know what fascism is," he said. “You get the government you deserve; if you’re not willing to do the work, don’t be surprised if other people come and take it away from you.”

Unlike the organization “Occupy,” which fizzled due to lack of specific goals and organization, he thinks Indivisible's energy will continue: “We have a great talent pool here.”

Hilley said her motives to do what amounted to a "new, part-time job," were very personal.

"My 8-year old is afraid there will be a war. My six-year old made this impromptu speech about how Trump is a threat to her values and way of life,” especially as regards friendship with people of other races. “I’m doing this for my children.”